


Sleeping Over

by BuzzCat



Series: Queen's Greatest Hits [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: ""apocalypse"", Aziraphale Needs to Sleep, Crowley Needs to Sleep More, Fluff, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat
Summary: “You could stay at my place, if you like.” The words are out of Crowley’s mouth before he has time to think about it. Before the rest of his brain catches up to what his mouth just said and can start screaming that this may, in fact, be a very bad idea.Aziraphale looks at him before saying very politely, “I don’t think my side would like that very much.”“We’re on our side now, angel. No changing that.” Crowley rolled the words around his mouth to fully savor their meaning as they drawled out. They really were on their side; no getting around it. And thank G—thank Hel—and thank fuck for that, he thought to himself.Aziraphale nodded to himself. He turned just the tiniest bit toward Crowley, stopped, then turned fully to face him. “Where exactly is your place?”





	Sleeping Over

“You could stay at my place, if you like.” The words are out of Crowley’s mouth before he has time to think about it. Before the rest of his brain catches up to what his mouth just said and can start screaming that this may, in fact, be a very bad idea.

Aziraphale looks at him before saying very politely, “I don’t think my side would like that very much.”

“We’re on our side now, angel. No changing that.” Crowley rolled the words around his mouth to fully savor their meaning as they drawled out. They really were on their side; no getting around it. _And thank G—thank Hel—and thank fuck for that,_ he thought to himself.

Aziraphale nodded to himself. He turned just the tiniest bit toward Crowley, stopped, then turned fully to face him. “Where exactly is your place?”

Crowley’s place, as it turned out, was in a tall building with mirror windows all the way up. Aziraphale had to stop on the street to look at it, look all the way up.

“You really live in one of these?” It was very far indeed from Aziraphale’s own flat, full of old wood and dusty sunlight that miraculously never damaged the old books dotting every table.

“’S not so bad. C’mon.” Crowley led them inside, up the lift, to his door. As Crowley fiddled with the lock, Aziraphale nodded at the serpent-adorned doorbell.

“Not very subtle.”

“Because that’s me, Mr. Subtlety.” The door swung open and Aziraphale stepped inside and was almost bowled over with the strangest gust of feeling from the apartment.

It felt so sad. It still had the strong smell of demonic presence—although that scent had the undercurrent of whatever cologne Crowley had been wearing for the last fifteen years—but underneath that, it felt sad. Except for one room, which veritably radiated fear.

Crowley stepped in, noticing nothing. “I’ll give you the grand tour.” He started to walk down one hallway but Aziraphale didn’t follow. Aziraphale’s own feet led him to the room that felt like fear, that radiated terror. What was that room? What could have possibly happened to Crowley in that room, why would he have a room that felt so afraid?

“Angel? Angel, where’re you—”

Aziraphale stood at the mouth of the hallway staring into the room.

Plants. It was a room full of plants, and it was the most fearful place Aziraphale had felt in the entirety of London. Crowley stepped into the hallway behind him and the fear spiked, though it wasn’t Crowley who was afraid, something Aziraphale was very grateful for before he rounded on him. “What on Earth have you done to these poor things?”

Crowley looked around the room. One leaf started to quiver, and he glared at it until it stopped. “I talk to them.”

Aziraphale leaned forward and gently stroked one luscious green leaf. “What do you say to them?”

“Encouragement.”

The leaf in Aziraphale’s hand shook slightly as Crowley leaned over Aziraphale’s shoulder to look at the plant as well. Crowley saw it and rolled his eyes.

“There is a whole rest of the flat, Aziraphale. Leave me plants alone; one nice word and it’ll undo months of hard work.”

Crowley walked out of the room and it seemed that the plants collectively let out a relieved sigh. Aziraphale smiled at the one in his hand, once Crowley was out of earshot.

“You’re looking quite lovely, you know. Such a beautiful green. I’m sure he’s very proud of you.” He patted the leaf nicely once more—confusing the plant more than anything—before stepping out, following Crowley through the rest of the house.

Now that the fear had been addressed—or at least the source discovered—the architecture of the place struck Aziraphale. It looked like Heaven. More stone, of course, and much darker, but the open floor, the high walls, the sparse décor, that was familiar indeed. His eyes flicked to Crowley as they walked through the flat. The loneliness filled the place, making the open areas feel desolate and the small ones despairing. Had Crowley ever been happy here? Once, in what was undoubtedly years?

“And finally, the kitchen. Questions?”

Aziraphale blinked as he realized the tour was over, Crowley had been talking the whole time, and he had paid almost no attention at all. Aziraphale smiled at him politely, “None at all.” He had many questions.

“Good. That’s, good.”

Crowley was tired. So tired that having feet seemed stupid, standing up unnecessary when he could quick as a flash be a snake, which was always lying down and one blink away from ready for sleep. Oh, he needed to sleep and he needed it to be an uninterrupted deep-in-his-bones kind of sleep. And now, as he and Aziraphale stood awkwardly in the middle of his flat, Crowley had no idea how to politely tell the angel he needed to be unconscious immediately.

He took a leaf from the book of humans.

Crowley stretched his arms out, faking a yawn that wasn’t entirely fake at all. “Well, I’m going to sleep. You can watch TV, or…” The television was the only real hobby-oriented thing in the flat. None of the music was anything Aziraphale would like, there were no books. He could watch television or stare at a wall.

Crowley was the worst host ever.

Aziraphale, for his part, smiled. “That sounds lovely for another day. I think I’ll curl up with a nice book—”

“There’s no books.” Aziraphale blinked and Crowley felt morally required to apologize, which was not a sensation he cared for at all. “Sorry.”

“No matter. I’m sure I can find something—"

“You could always sleep,” Crowley interrupted. Oh, he was an idiot and a fool and the demonic ability to sink through the floor sounded damn helpful right about now.

“Oh.”

The suggestion caught Aziraphale off-guard. He’d never tried sleeping before. It always looked so boring, just laying there when there were so many other things to do. But humans seemed to find it refreshing. Even Crowley said taking a nap was helpful, though Aziraphale rather thought there should have been a line drawn against sleeping for a full century. And he really was starting to feel exhausted, what with the discorporation and subsequent recorporation, stopping the apocalypse, and meeting Satan himself.

“I suppose sleep might be…helpful. Is there a bed?”

Crowley visibly gulped and Aziraphale had the distinct feeling he wasn’t the only one wrong-footed in this. “There’s the bed in my room. It’s a California king, plenty of space. If, if you want to try sleeping.”

There was a moment between the two of them, a space where Aziraphale could say it was quite alright, he’d just stay up meditating or something while Crowley slept. A space for him to politely decline and return everything to the status quo.

But they’d just stopped the apocalypse. If there was ever a day to upset the status quo…

“If you wouldn’t mind having me, I think I’d like to try sleeping.”

“’Course. It’s just this way.” Crowley led the way down the hall.

Crowley was quietly dying. Aziraphale was in his flat. In his bedroom. Going to be sleeping in his bed.

This was fine. Everything was fine. He was an unflappable demon, for someone’s sake. He’d even been the one to suggest Aziraphale sleep with him.

Crowley winced at the sentence. Okay, bad turn of phrase. But he’d been the one to tell Aziraphale to try sleeping in bed.

But as soon as Crowley opened the door to the bedroom, all those thoughts flew from his head.

Oh fuck. His _bed_.

It was beautiful. Exactly how he’d left it, all huge with soft white multi-thousand threadcount sheets and a black duvet that glittered like the night sky. Suddenly he was so tired, tired in a way that seeped past the bones of his corporation and directly into his ineffable soul. Oh, to sleep. For a week. A month.

Fuck it, a _year_.

Crowley threw back the sheets and crawled into bed, miracling himself out of jacket and trousers between one blink and the next. The black tanktop and black shorts he wore to bed wasn’t his first choice, but having company meant wearing clothes. He haphazardly threw his sunglasses on the nighttable and leaned back with a sigh that seemed to echo from every cavern in him.

“Not that there isn’t a lot to say about everything that happened, because there’s a lot that just happened, but I will not be awake in five minutes. So, for someone’s sake, Aziraphale,” he turned to look at the angel, who was still hesitantly standing beside the bed and seemed a bit baffled by the whole concept, “miracle yourself something comfy and get into bed.”

“Of course, my dear boy.” Aziraphale gave him a shaky smile and his cream suit became cream button-down pajamas, sleeves to wrists and sleep pants to his ankles. Crowley rolled his eyes,

“It’s sleeping, not Ascot. Something comfy.”

“This is comfy,” Aziraphale protested and he pulled back the sheets on his side and sat down, back straight and the covers gathered at his waist. Crowley pulled the covers on his side up over his shoulder until they stopped just below his nose.

“If you say so. Now lay down and go to sleep.”

Aziraphale dutifully lay down, flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. Crowley snaked one hand out from under the covers and snapped his fingers. The lights clicked off, plunging the room into darkness save for the tiny pinpricks of “starlight” that shone from the duvet. The room was quiet a moment, then Aziraphale whispered from the distant side of bed, “How do I sleep?”

Crowley’s deep breathing was all the answer he received. Well. Aziraphale turned on his side, facing the dark lump he knew was Crowley all the way across the bed. It was the first night of the rest of their lives, and Aziraphale was going to sleep for the first time in six thousand years. He’d just have to figure it out.

**Author's Note:**

> Queen's Greatest Hits - Sleeping on the Sidewalk
> 
> Fun fact: I actually wrote this without a Queen song in mind, Googled 'queen songs about sleep' directly before posting, listened to the song once and went 'oh shit yeah that'll work'  
>   
> Also, it's five-thirty in the morning as I post this and Crowley thinking about his bed? Me.


End file.
